Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Like a lot of other Northeast Ohioans, your Primary Editorial Voice(tm) is forced to admit that we have SOME sort of illness.

We've slept most of the past two days, and have invoked the OMW Medical Staff to help figure this out for us.

We know that the usual instructions involve plenty of rest, and plenty of liquids, but don't usually outline plenty of updates to a blog...so, we've been tending to Offline Life(tm) most of the time.

As far as we know, we do NOT have the H1N1 or "swine" flu - that has even shown up in some local media operations. And as far as we know, you can't pick up the flu just by reading a blog written by someone who has it...so, at least you're safe, even if we did.

This will be a generally short update on items we haven't touched upon yet. Details will come between coughs later...

TWC NEW CHANNELS: Yes, Time Warner Cable's Northeast Ohio system has rolled out its latest HDTV channels, which were scheduled to "go live" on November 4th (/or after). Here's the list:

Generally speaking, if you get the non-HD version of a channel, the HD version follows along.

When we aren't trying to fit OMW updates between doctor visits, we'll try to get an update on the conversion process in the former Comcast areas, and when they can expect SDV-driven new HDTV channels that have already appeared in the rest of Time Warner's massive Northeast Ohio footprint...

Over the past year I have been experiencing more on air time at WTAM 1100. My main job as a board op/producer keeps me running the dials and switches for talk shows and sporting events however I have filled in doing 20-20 Sports Updates. I have come out of the bullpen numerous times already to do Sports Updates during Wills & Snyder from 5:00 a.m.-9:00 a.m. around the holidays and even some Saturday mornings on the Bob Becker Show from 6:00 a.m.-9:00 a.m. This past year I also did on air reports for Cleveland State men's basketball games.

Did we say "young"?

Why, yes...Mr. Camino is, by his own admission on Mike Trivisonno's Monday show, 25 years old...and will have to "learn baseball". Yipes.

Then again, we don't remember Mark Schwab's age or other experience when he was hired as WTAM's Indians beat reporter, and he turned out pretty well...so we'll reserve judgment, and wish Nick Camino the best....

NEOTROPWHAT?: We never provided more details for the half-hour weekly local business program that bumped Western Reserve PBS' news roundtable "NewsNight Akron" a half hour later on Friday nights...so here's more about "NEOtropolis", now airing Fridays at 9 PM on WNEO/45 Alliance-WEAO/49 Akron:

Western Reserve Public Media introduces its new half-hour weekly program that will build northeast Ohio viewers’ knowledge of regional economic issues, strengthen their confidence in the economy of northeast Ohio and provide them with helpful information and resources to endure challenging economic times.

NEOtropolis focuses exclusively on the business and economy of northeast Ohio. The show will tell the full story of the regional economy, sharing both the challenges and opportunities unfolding in northeast Ohio.

The program is hosted by Thomas Mulready, publisher of CoolCleveland.com. Content partners are Crain’s Cleveland Business and The Business Journal of Youngstown. “NEOtropolis will offer timely information about the region’s business and economy in a fast-paced yet in-depth format,” said Duilio Mariola, Western Reserve Public Media executive producer. “We want to be a vehicle for dialogue about regionalism for the four major cities in our broadcast area — Akron, Canton, Cleveland and Youngstown."

Miklos Kossanyi led a TV and radio group with the slogan, "Bring Your Heritage Home."

The Hungarian refugee and Bay Village resident died Oct. 27 after a long struggle with cancer. He was 70.

Pertinent to this report, Kossanyi had two media operations - the Lakewood-based Nationality Broadcast Network, which produced Hungarian-language news and programming seen on cable's SCOLA public affairs network, and WKTX/830 Cortland, a Youngstown-market daytimer that at times seemed to believe it was actually audible in Lakewood and Bay Village.

We are familiar with WKTX's early days as a local oldies station serving Cortland, Warren and nearby areas - and the station has played nostalgic music with a local host in times that are not sold to time block buyers, even in recent years.

WKTX has to pull itself from the air each sunset, to make way for the powerful 50,000 watt signal of WCCO/830 Minneapolis MN...

(Judging from its website, CBS Radio AC WDOK/102.1 Cleveland will wait until Thanksgiving week to do the Ho Ho Flip, and we expect the usual suspects - like Salem Cleveland CCM WFHM/95.5 "The Fish" and Clear Channel Akron/Canton AC WHOF/101.7 "My 101.7" to flip sometime before that...but that's just a guess.)

If we missed anything that will hold over, we'll get to it between doctor's appointments. And thanks for hanging in there with us!

8 comments:

I interned at WKTX at the Lakewood facility in '91-92, when it aired oldies in PM drive. Man, such a long time ago. They wanted to make me Operations Manager...and I was still in broadcast school, lol!

Anyway, with the list of new HD channels on Time Warner, I seem to recall the NHL Network and, I think, IFC were supposed to be a part of the November 4th bundle. Now, no sign of them, and no sign of them on the latest programming notice. I know northeast Ohio isn't a hotbed for hockey, but it's just messed up to tease us hockey fans like that! Any idea if it is actually still in the works?

I just saw some new HD channels on Time Warner today. They are in the 1600-1620 range, then some up into the 1800s. Not even on the channel guide yet. They include HD ESPNews, National Geographic, CNBC, NHL Network (only if you subscribe to the sports pack), and some others.